[tater]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

That is funny tater, I do realise that I really need to be in your location and to be a hiking enthusiast to understand that the border fire you link to didn't even start in the US.
BTW if illegals are such a cause of wildfires why is so much of that link on current fires taken up with fires in north eastern Texas?
I take it the Alaskan wildfires are just some latinos who got really lost?

I said the areas in proximity to the actual border. That includes mexico where illegals stage to cross into the US (or drug runners).

I would bet money that the leading cause of wildfires nationally is in fact lightning, and by a wide margin. Lightning would be up there as a cause in AZ right now, except we've not had any moisture at all. Humid days lately have pushed 10% humidity. the other day the official value in ABQ was ZERO. Crazy. No storms, no lightning. Besides, the Monument and Horseshoe2 fires have already been found to have been caused by people (probably because they know there have been no storms at all lately, duh).

Thats a rather dishonest claim, giving half a picture isn't presenting a real case at all.
However working off your link why are there so few? Surely if illegals are a worthwhile factor in this wildfire problem then their smuggling routes would dominate the map instead of being by the relatively fire free areas.
So lets get this straight , you are basing your claim on local knowlege backed up by information you provide which shoots great big holes your claims.

Amazing isn't it, how your local expertise can be trumped by simple experience as in.....arizona politician in an election cycle jumps on espousing silly rumours

It's trumped by nothing.

The most likely cause nationally is lightning, but we're in a very dry spell here in the SW. No measurable rain in over 120 days. So little moisture, we're not even making dry thunderstorms (storms sans rain happen during the dry season, and are feared as they still make lightning, even if the rain evaporates before hitting the ground (which is called "virga" BTW)). What causes fires in AK (or TX) where they get many tens of inches of rain per year, and what causes them in AZ or NM with well under 10 inches per year are two different things.

Since the current bigger fires have already been determined to be man-caused, illegals are the most likely cause since no regular people camp near the border, it's too dangerous right now, and has been for years.

Other states have other causes. You seem to act as if the most likely cuase in one place must be the most likely cause in every other place, or that since I say illegals are a primary cause within a few miles of the border (say 10-20), it must be so in AK. That's ridiculous. You realize that there are counties in AZ and NM that are likely bigger than your country, right?

There are vast geographical differences even between southern and northern AZ, for example. The south is harsh desert (Sonora), the north is high desert and mountains. Texas is the plains, and since they get vastly different weather (cyclonic storms over the plains), lightning is a very likely cause for TX fires (you may have heard of a few bad storms east of the rockies already this season, some made tornados). New Mexico, for example, has great plains on the East (TX like weather with huge storms, tornados, etc), but the West is high desert. The south is very hot and dry, the north is fairly dry, but from Santa Fe north it's the rockies, so there is far more water in the mountains (it rains preferentially at high altitude due to orographic lift).

In the desert, where there are no storms common until monsoon season (hopefully early July, but sometimes not til August), lightning is simply not a likely suspect before the monsoons. (note that we get ~8 inches here in northern NM, but souther AZ might get considerably less, and still most in July-September when they may see daily t-storms. I do mean "see," BTW, we see storms wandering around, but they only rain on a given spot every so often. Course I can see over 100 miles away out my window).

Sadly I just find it normal, distateful yes, but such a run of the mill event it is fully expected.
However what I do find really distasteful is people jumping up to support that politician using the disaster.

I don't like McCain, but he's right in this case. Yes, he's trying to get anti-illegal immigration creds by stating it which is funny, since he doesn't vote very well in that regard.

Anyway, the most likely cause for any fire that is man-caused along the border is illegals, period. Why? Because no one else goes there any more.